Dear Jesmyn Ward,
I thought a lot about the entanglements you described in your writing. In thinking
about the racial entanglements that blur boundaries or the entanglements of
different histories in your mention of the Black Panthers. Is there a way to tell
history that includes these entanglements? You focused heavily on the
physicality of places and people with specific attention to detail. Is this writing
style related to when you wrote that “Like all children, they were the children of
history and place”? In this same way do you feel yourself having an identity
distinguished from those around you, or are you an embodiment of your town
and community. Additionally, what do you think the point of history is, and why
do you seek to preserve it? I also read Salvage the Bones, and your writing
often mentions dogs/wolves as well as the impact of different hurricanes on
communities. I also acknowledged I am quick to undervalue fiction writing
because it is not completely objective, yet I also know that nothing ever is.
As Virginia Woolf said, “Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts
the better the fiction.”
I thought a lot about the entanglements you described in your writing. In thinking
about the racial entanglements that blur boundaries or the entanglements of
different histories in your mention of the Black Panthers. Is there a way to tell
history that includes these entanglements? You focused heavily on the
physicality of places and people with specific attention to detail. Is this writing
style related to when you wrote that “Like all children, they were the children of
history and place”? In this same way do you feel yourself having an identity
distinguished from those around you, or are you an embodiment of your town
and community. Additionally, what do you think the point of history is, and why
do you seek to preserve it? I also read Salvage the Bones, and your writing
often mentions dogs/wolves as well as the impact of different hurricanes on
communities. I also acknowledged I am quick to undervalue fiction writing
because it is not completely objective, yet I also know that nothing ever is.
As Virginia Woolf said, “Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts
the better the fiction.”
Why am I not surprised that you quoted Virginia Woolf?
ReplyDeleteI also have been thinking about entangled narratives and how overwhelming but necessary it is to include the entanglements somehow. I struggle with this concept because it would seem to make the "plot line" of history to be chaotic and simultaneous, like many conversations all happening at once, but isn't this how history organically occurs?